Before It All
by dionysuspark
Summary: A private moment between Johnny Topside and Sofia Lamb.


[ this is an au where Johnny Topside came to Rapture long before 1957, obviously. it's been five years and I _still_ ship this ]

* * *

The green sea that surrounded them and crept into any room where there was windows usually appeared murky and depressing, but in this moment, in this particular room, the sea and the grand, luminous biomasses that throbbed far beyond the cityscape outside illuminated Lamb's hair like a halo–and John believed it incredibly fitting.

"We ought to be more careful, you know," he said, calloused but gentle fingers at her brow. He was as bare as the day he had been born, and so was she, save for the marbled necklace he had given her. Unlike her and against her philosophy to keep gifts and accept flattery, but anything and everything was developing in the psychiatrist's life as of late. "You and me, I mean. Especially in anywhere that isn't the park."

Sofia hummed at first, her eyes peacefully closed, and then when she took in the words properly, her beady eyes were upon him, scrutinising. Her mind never stopped ticking, he assumed, so ingrained were her skills in psychology that she never paused for a second.

"How, and _why_ do you presume that?" she drawled. Her voice was just one of the many ethereal features of her; the epitome of class and culture, made raspy by cigarette abuse though it only added to her presence.

Johnny blinked then sighed. "Half of Rapture turns up to your debates now–hell, I've seen people skipping work just to be there in the moment. And that means half of Rapture joyfully witnesses their founding father be fried by, in his eyes, an outsider. Someone he invited here to be on his side, and now you've practically betrayed him. You're treading a dangerous line, is all I am saying, and now we're…"

"Involved?" He nodded. Sofia only smirked, rising from beneath the sheets with a sigh herself. "I don't know why you bother yourself worrying, John. What can Ryan do to me, really? Or you? He daren't even speak out against me properly, sending his little spies into the Family, instead of confronting me openly…"

Her spidery fingers twitched and almost reached for the packet of cigarettes she kept in her drawer, but for once, she resisted.

"If he ever dared to make a political prisoner of me, it would be by my own volition. I have crafted my time here each waking moment to build up to something greater than you or I, John, you know that…"

"I do know that," he sighed out again.

She smiled at him softly, reaching over instead to peck a kiss at his lips.

"You are sweet, John," she said, "but I have handled myself for the entirety of my life, in more dangerous habitats than this. The climate is worrying, I know, and I know too that you aren't heavily involved with all the politics, but… Please. Believe me when I say this is in my control, and my control is only becoming tighter with each new visitor that wanders into Dionysus."

He nodded and smiled back at her. His worries were reflected in his eyes, but he was quieted by her words–everyone was in Rapture, that was why she was so popular. A psychiatrist that certainly had the ability to manipulate the populace like Ryan could, the charisma that oozed out of her so well, but she was _genuine_. The only member of the Best and Brightest parade that spent her days counselling and employing the unfortunate, the needy that stemmed out of the poverty in Rapture Andrew Ryan was very quick to deny.

For her, he assumed it was his ability to listen. He never questioned her motives, or expressed a desire to domesticate her like previous men in her life–more apparent when she were young–and he was intelligent beneath his rugged exterior. Johnny Topside was a celebrity after discovering the city, a comedian, the kind of person Lamb would never have touched with a ten-foot pole, and yet… there had been and there was a certain draw to him she could not deny, and she held no regrets about the relationship that had grown out of it.

Once she had watched him tend to a fallen child, once she had watched him spare some food in Pauper's Drop, and it was the little acts of unseen but appreciated kindness that appealed to her, more than anything else.

Sofia cleared her throat, looking away though she remained facing him.

"And besides… Being careful or secret is no longer an option. Or, in a few months, it shall not be."

"What's that?"

Her wry, cool smile was replaced by a playful one, then one of the rare ones she only seemed to display to him. The reasoning for staying off the cigarettes was there, though it took him so long to click onto her words.

"It seems we are going to have a child."


End file.
